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Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute

About the BII

The Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute (BII) was established in 2010 on the initiative of the then Master, Andrew Graham, to cultivate and support interdisciplinary research in Balliol College, straddling the humanities, the social sciences, and the physical and medical sciences. The Institute provides opportunities for Senior Members and graduate students to propose and lead pioneering research projects that:

require contributions from more than one discipline;

have high potential impact;

and may be radical or speculative in nature.

Types of research projects supported

The BII supports both gestational projects and more fully fledged proposals. Pioneering interdisciplinary research sometimes requires a period of open-ended exploration and time to build strong teams. By helping gestational projects, the BII can facilitate experimental freedom with low risk, or it can boost more developed projects that are still small in scale or require only modest resources. More mature projects oriented towards sharply defined outcomes may benefit from leveraging BII support in order to attract more external funding. More information about applying for BII funding and support is available here.

Engagement with Balliol alumni

The BII is keen to engage with Balliol alumni in various ways including:

connecting alumni with past and current project investigators;

sharing alumni ideas for potential BII projects to be taken up by Current Members;

matching alumni researchers with BII research teams to engage directly in research;

Engagement with the rest of the University and beyond

Participation from elsewhere in Oxford University and beyond is welcome and the norm for most projects, but the research team must be led by one or more Balliol Fellows, Lecturers, or graduate students.

More information

You can find information about current and past projects, along with contact details of lead investigators, by navigating through the menu in this section. A BII WebLearn site is available to logged-in users: you can ask to join by contacting the relevant lead investigator or by emailing bii@balliol.ox.ac.uk.